Is the points game a dead horse?

[Matt]

Back in April I wrote about my thoughts on award space throttling, I’d been looking for some flights and simply couldn’t find anything viable. It would be a great way to discretely layer a further devaluation into an award chart without making a fanfare… and I see more and more of it.

Generally speaking, I’m not a follower of other blogs, but I do like to use twitter to stay in touch with humanity, so occasionally see a retweet from someone I don’t regularly read, or a tweet from someone who I follow. Am I the only one noticing a disturbance in the force?

I just did a quick search to bring up example posts, but the screenshot works pretty well:

Are we being sold a dead horse?


Why the excitement about award space being ‘wide open’? When we hear about the points game there is never a mention of ‘not being able to find a flight’ it’s always:

50,000 points is worth $53,503 because that is what I would normally pay in cash money if I wasn’t playing World of Warcraft
​

There’s no:

Great offer, if you can ever find saver award space
​

So I’m worried… is it drying up because of all you leaches stealing my space?! And where do we go from here?

Do we have an abundant mind?


Today SCOTUS announced that Gay Marriage was constitutional. And as such gays would be afforded the same rights as the rest of the screwed up society that we call America. A truly great event. One of the worst things that you can do on days like this is to read the comments of the press. You get to see some of the most insane people coming up with the most ridiculous arguments (other than God saying it wasn’t cool of course, which makes perfect sense…)

One of the more intelligent arguments I saw was that Social Security would end (die!) sooner because the gay folk would have the same rights and could now draw equally from it. I have to say it is one of the more well thought out arguments that I have seen, but creates an interesting perspective on abundance. When is it OK to share, and when is it not?

How is this related?


The natural evolution of the points game is that ‘boring’ awards become flooded and ‘optimized’ so nobody can get them anymore… that might encourage bloggers to share the more exotic variations of an award, and fill a needs gap. Should we champion this, and allow that abundance to rejoice, or should we frown upon such sharing, as it will kill off the gig that much sooner?

When is it OK to share, and when is it not? Are people who share killing it sooner for the haves? And should we perhaps wonder if they are doing it to really help the ‘have nots’, or for some other reason….


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[rhinodh]

Great post, and I appreciate this post because you won't see this on many blogs due to their reliance on their readers to click their links.

For the last two years or so, I haven't recommended the points 'game' to others because it really isn't practical for most, and it seems to only be getting more restrictive (availability shrinking, award prices increasing, easy CC bonuses staying the same or decreasing). It does help, to an extent, that there are MS methods available to increase your points balances, but that requires more work and know-how.

 

[Annie H.]

You said, "One of the more intelligent arguments I saw was that Social Security would end (die!) sooner because the gay folk would have the same rights and could now draw equally from it. I have to say it is one of the more well thought out arguments that I have seen,"

Slightly OT but one of the arguments for not legalizing undocumented immigrants, many of whom pay into Social Security-- is exactly the same. All that money folks pay in using phony SS #s that gets frozen and kept by the feds might go away. Once folks are legal they could go back and submit a claim for all that money paid in and their subsequent earnings would be credited to their account.

W/regard to gay and lesbians and Social Security--lots of gay men marry lesbians-- or is it lesbians marrying gay men?--in name only, papers are filed, no one knows and this enables lots of Social Security collecting--as it should be. 1000 benefits straight folks have that gay and lesbians did not--until now.

 

[Someone]

Maybe this is where "pay with points" works? I realize the redemption value per point is lower, but they can't all be "worth" 5c toward seats in J.